Putting the Wild into Words

Putting the Wild into Words

Save the Wild U.P.

Poetry Contest Winners Selected by Russell Thorburn, U.P. Poet Laureate

Save the Wild U.P.savethewildup.org

First Prize — Putting the Wild into Words, 2014

In Wildness by Milton Bates

In wildness is the preservation of the world. —Thoreau

The wildness of a Lake Superior wave drives deep water shoreward, building until it stumbles on an upward lift of sandstone. A frothy snarl precedes

the break and wash. Through trunk and bough the fountain of a hemlock’s wildness surges toward the light, hemmed in by other hemlocks, browsed in winter by

rack-ribbed deer. Without a howl to vent its wildness the wolf would burst its lungs. That bellows blast is throttled down by windpipe, massaged by vocal cords, fine-tuned by

tongue and palate. What do we know of wildness, we who call it neighbor? We know the drive, the surge, the bellows blast; and we know too well what trips it up, what hems it in, what throttles its cry

in our throats.

“What do we know of wildness, we who call it neighbor?” - Milton Bates

Photo: Keith Glendon

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Second Prize — Putting the Wild into Words, 2014

The Cabin at Burns Landing by Marie Barry

The summer grass spreads knee deep, broken only by the deer ambling in silent procession to feed on the wild blackberries growing along the path. In the orchard, heavy with the scent of fallen sweetness hornets swarm aimlessly like half drunk old men, stuttering and wheeling in the bronze tangled light. At the edge of the swamp the cabin waits quietly, leaning into a brace of jack pine and birch, tethered to earth with a snare of brambles and burdock its grey logs chinked with crumbling mud, a fringe of goldenrod and fern knotted along its spine. Its gaunt frame settles into the earth, its rafters open to the sun and the nesting of swallows. The vacant windows pull light from the day, small grey bones scatter the dirt floor. Squirrel and crow live here now the half hinged door turns no one away.

“The vacant windows pull light from the day” - Marie Barry

Photo: flickr.com/photos/lonecellotheory/1338832871/ by Ian - Creative Commons

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Third Prize — Putting the Wild into Words, 2014

Patience Among the Cattails by Meghan Stan

Tall grasses and reeds rub each other’s stalks and their silhouettes tower against a chilled Huron sunrise. The muck underfoot schlucks and schlooks with each step; the water rushing in where slop was pushed out, and the suction makes each step deliberate and slow. Now silence. Now stillness. Patience is easy outdoors, and I have practiced for twenty years, encouraged by my father. I don’t hold a gun on these hunting trips, but have the same hopeful expectation, and my eyes are sharply focused on life other than my own. The cattails’ corrugated leaves gracefully curve. The songbirds opine and share antique but relevant wisdom as they perch sideways and regard me with one eye. I readjust my position (schluck, schlook) and gaze back, waiting for a flock of ducks to whir overhead.

“The cattails’ corrugated leaves gracefully curve.” - Meghan Stan

Photo: Kathleen M. Heideman

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Save the Wild U.P.Photos: Keith Glendon

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Honorable Mention — Putting the Wild into Words, 2014

The Road In by Genean Granger

I edge off M-95 onto the gravel road, Set my teeth to the jaw-jarring of tires on the washboard left by too many lumber trucks. ABBA is blaring. My head is full of alliteration, assonance, and resonant verbs, detritus from Poetry class. My eyes follow a hawk overhead. On the two-rut road, gouged with potholes, I am distracted from Fernando’s heavy drumbeat. I watch for hidden rocks and pause as I pass Big Bend camp, take pleasure in the hug of the curve of the Michigamme. Afternoon sun flickers off the water. Currents eddy around deadhead logs and up-heaved sandbars. Change its pace. Slow it down. Recharged it moves rapidly, finds momentum. I pass the spot widened by loggers. On hot summer days I pushed my son’s buggy here. He’d sleep, lulled by buckets bumping together. I ate and plucked wild blueberries, juice stained my mouth, my fingers. Berries no longer grow there. Beyond the absent bushes, lush hardwoods are erased. Shaking aspens,

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virgin maples, and oaks are gone. Just larches, red pines, scrub trees remain –shoddy substitutions. The forest seems shamed, fiddlehead ferns curl and brown. I round the corner by Eckloff’s camp. The last turn and I see my loons circling and I park between the birches.

Save the Wild U.P.

“Change its pace. Slow it down.” - Genean Granger

Photo: IMG_2316 by Manuel W., Flickr - Creative Commons



Evidence by Matt Maki

Calicoed current herringboned rocks where brown was-moss is moss again, grows not only itself, but a tree, paper antler with twenty-nine eyes and gills breathing in green on green on up. Beneath canopy more canopy more green on green— scaly limbs replanting their tips in noonblack ooze of something becoming everything perhaps frond-canopy for sand birthing silt in drowsy cursive carvings shaping ripples of current over cement cum steel cum PVC pipe, one jagged elbow snagging discarded cloth Beneath canopy more canopy.

“Beneath canopy more canopy.” - Matt Maki


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Primary by Rochelle Dale

Sky Blue crayon assumes Its name from this February sky. Frozen cumulous clouds Cover the ground where I Sashay on my skis. The sun, like my childhood drawings, pierces yellow. At the cabin, I will set a red Ripe tomato on a stump Between the young white pines. Around the tomato, I’ll sprinkle Sunflower seeds for chickadees’ Delight. And mine.

“The sun, like my childhood drawings, pierces yellow.” - Rochelle Dale


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Documents

Putting the Wild into Words